What is an SPF record?

An SPF Record protects your customers, brand and business from phishing and spoofing attacks by authenticating your email through a protocol known as SPF (Sender Policy Framework)

How to create an SPF record.

Get all IP addresses that are used to send email

The first thing to do is identify which servers within the business mail is sent from. Consider the location of all server areas such as the mail server, web server, and any other third party mail server used that sends email on the behalf of your brand (this could include mailing list providers etc.)

Get all sending domain names

Create a sending domain from all domains relevant to the business. 

Create the SPF record 

Syntax

• v=spf1 (is version 1 of spf)
• ip4:2.3.4
• include:domainhere.com
• -all (This is the most secure record as it will return an SPF Failure message to domains not allowed)

Example:

v=spf1 ip4:1.2.3.4 ip4:2.3.4.5 include:domainhere.com -all 

Publish the SPF record to DNS

Add the file as an arecord and paste the completed text of the completed SPF record into the record. 

Then publish / upload the record.

Check that the SPF record is working

https://tools.dnsstuff.com/ is a useful resource to check that the SPF record is online and working.